Text of Former Federation Officer Commander Nezak's Speech to the Citizens of Rura Penthe on the Eve of Battle
Text of Former Federation Officer Commander Nezak’s Speech to the Citizens of Rura Penthe On the Eve of Battle Transcript by Jake Sisko Friends! Citizens! Free men of the new state Rura Penthe, hear my words! Many of you my know me. Others may only have heard of me. I have avoided speaking to you directly because I am merely an instrument, like many of you, a follower of Red Path; an awkward and unworthy tool in a noble experiment! It does not matter who I am. But now we face destruction, the combined might of the Klingon Empire turned towards our experiment, and I owe you good account. My name is Nezak and I have been many things in my lifetime: a believer, a pariah, a zealot and a heretic. A Starfleet Officer and a leader in a movement greater and more grand than anything else I’ve encountered. I have been all these things but I come before you today as something else: a free citizen. Free! Free, for perhaps the first time in my life! Because I have shed that identity whose office was so unbecoming to my being! So empty when laid bare! And the cosmos has rewarded me with a chance to build something greater than myself! I know now that Rura Penthe is the end of the line. The culmination of a long and sublime path that lead me here, as it has lead all of you here! The Red Path never gives us what we want, never works to a time table, but also does it leave no man behind! Look at the odds we face! Our intelligence tells us that the enemy has sent ships three times our number! Make no mistake: the attack that we face today comes not from our noble Azaram, not from the Red Path, not even the petty and seemingly endless politics that have enthralled the Klingon people, just as they have enthralled so many others! This attack comes for one reason: our enemies are afraid. Not of our number or are defenses. Not even of our mission to restore Klingon rule. No, they are afraid of this place! Afraid of what we have built! The first new state in the alpha quadrant in over two centuries! Built in the heart of entrenched power, of aggression and tyranny! Built in the very heart of all those old ways which will no longer serve the spirit of a noble galaxy! I have seen things in these past few weeks, things that fill my heart to bursting with pride. I know first hand the satisfaction Red Path can bring. I have seen Federation officers serving side by side with Klingons and a Bird of Prey. But I have never seen anything like this. Men and women working together. Free men and recently freed. Men of all colors and cultures. Not just for survival but for something nobler. A place consistent with those values that lead me to Starfleet in the first place. Freedom, brotherhood! Infinite diversity in infinite combination! Mark my words: this place, this Rura Penthe… has a grand destiny. We, all of us, will serve great needs before our days are at an end. But we do not fight for that this day. Today, we fight not for glory, for Azaram or for Red Path. We fight for survival. We fight because the tyrannical and the weak would see us annihilated merely for thinking that which we’ve made reality in these scant weeks. Friends! Citizens of the Free State of Rura Penthe, hear me! Tomorrow, we die for cause. Tomorrow, we die for country, for life and freedom. Today, we fight merely to continue to exist. We fight for the right to die tomorrow. And to live… for greater things!